History of Visalia, California

Visalia, California is the oldest continuously inhabited inland European settlement between Stockton and Los Angeles. It was commonly known in the 1850s as Four Creeks, after the waterways through the area. The area was also briefly known as Buena Vista by the Tulare County board of supervisors, before Visalia formally became the county seat on March 11, 1854. The city played an important role in the American colonization of the San Joaquin Valley as the county seat of Old Tulare County, an expansive region comprising most if not all of modern-day Fresno, Kings, and Kern counties.